Please help me learn how I can expand the "sweet spot" of my Hauptwerk audio system from just at the organ bench with a stereo pair of studio monitors to throughout my music room. It is not public performance, just some friends and I at my house. I was thinking about using cycling ranks and octaves and a wall of speakers. I have Hauptwerk advanced addition and can add several audio channels but don't see any sample sets out there that are not in a stereo format. I'd like to hear from some people who have had success with medium sized spaces, like chapels, before I spend a lot of money and possibly regret it.

PhantomoftheOrgan wrote:Please help me learn how I can expand the "sweet spot" of my Hauptwerk audio system from just at the organ bench with a stereo pair of studio monitors to throughout my music room. It is not public performance, just some friends and I at my house. I was thinking about using cycling ranks and octaves and a wall of speakers. I have Hauptwerk advanced addition and can add several audio channels but don't see any sample sets out there that are not in a stereo format. I'd like to hear from some people who have had success with medium sized spaces, like chapels, before I spend a lot of money and possibly regret it.

Well that is the classic 'open ended question" ?)First try using the speakers you have in a couple of ways. First simply put the smaller speakers up about at ear level while leaving the bass speaker on the floor. spread the smaller speakers slightly apart but not more that close to the width of the original organ case. Face the speakers to the rear of the room and seat the people in rows of chairs that are not wider than the stereo field and enough rows to hold the people. This will provide an opportunity to get all of the guests within the stereo field without absorbing the sound itself.

If that does not provide enough sound then add additional speakers to the rear in the corners (surround or reverb) to provide either surround or pseudo surround from impulse reverb.

Still want more? Add stereo pairs of identical speakers to the front space (a minimum total of six and as many as possible) to provide some movement and spatial separation among the speakers. But this is where things get complicated.

There are some others on here that have played extensively but rather unscientifically with multiple speakers.

Some remarks and suggestions:- With multiple speakers sets, you might decrease harmonic/intermodular distortion and (for better or worse) change the stereo image, but I don't see how multiple speaker sets can expand a "sweat spot". - Maybe you can consider omnidirectional speakers, but personally I don't have experience with those. - For wet sets, room treatment might improve things a lot, use thick carpets, wooden panels etc to reduce reflections. - With room correction software (ARC2) you can measure your room at multiple spots and find an optimal correction for the sound that is send to your speakers- Especially if the room is reverberant, you can use many speakers in combination with dry sample sets. In this case you adjust the voicing to the room rather than replicating the original voicing and acoustics of the organ.

Thanks everyone for the good suggestions. The phantom center stereo image is an elusive creature but the advice you have given is very helpful. The phantom can be captured by head phones but then it seems to be inside my head. Though a definite compromise, this might be the most economical solution, to have multiple head phones so all in attendance can participate.

Has anyone tried a pair of Ohm F-5015 speakers? The specifications say each speaker combines a full-range omnidirectional driver (handles up to 400 W) with a powered (500 W) fifteen inch subwoofer that goes down to 16 Hz +/- 3 db. They are costly but only a fraction of the cost of many of the true omnidirectional systems.

Have any H.W. Forum participants tried any of the systems that reflect a cone driver and/or dome driver off of a ball or cone?

Hi Phantom, No, I haven't heard the Ohms, but I am seriously looking into the cone reflector. I believe it's called an acoustic lens or something. Usually the systems that use them are subwoofers, or (very) high end full range. Due to some frustration on my part to find a good full range speaker driver that does NOT beam in the higher pitches, I have been considering building speakers for myself utilizing up-firing full-range drivers firing into an acoustic lens with a subwoofer. It's still frustrating though, to find drivers that give good fidelity and aren't going to break the bank!

Nothing is ever perfect though, so when I can afford to get around to it, I will probably have to find what gives the best midrange I can afford, top it with the best tweeter, etc. Then we will just see how it sounds.

I am a huge fan of the omni-directional sound! I hate sweet spots. Music should sound good from wherever you sit or stand! Otherwise you would have to cram everyone into 1 chair with all of their heads crammed together!

Scott, please let us know how your speaker construction progresses and how they sound. I'm very interested in speakers that sound good all over the room and would like to learn what works and what doesn't as we experiment with our audio equipment. It looks like the audio lens approach is much more economical than the Walsh type cones and other direct radial drivers used in ultra high end speakers.

Hi Eric, I'm interested in the specifications of your home pipe organ. I wish I had the room and money to take in a homeless pipe organ. With so many churches getting away from traditional music there are many organs being lost. I'm thankful for H.W. so we can experience to the extent possible these vanishing grand instruments.

I am a huge fan of the omni-directional sound! I hate sweet spots. Music should sound good from wherever you sit or stand! Otherwise you would have to cram everyone into 1 chair with all of their heads crammed together!

~S

Hallo Scott

Have you ever considered dipole speakers for the mid and highs, like the great Heil air motion transformers, see my setup viewtopic.php?f=21&t=15814or the Dayton AMT-Pro4 https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-au ... m--275-094These speakers have the best of both worlds. Good focussing but also very spacious sound.Because of the large usable freq. 800-20000 hz they are also phase lineair like like Kefs for al large part of the spectrum. Resulting in a non fatiguing sound.

PhantomoftheOrgan wrote:Hi Eric, I'm interested in the specifications of your home pipe organ. I wish I had the room and money to take in a homeless pipe organ. With so many churches getting away from traditional music there are many organs being lost. I'm thankful for H.W. so we can experience to the extent possible these vanishing grand instruments.

Hi,

The pipes have sat silently for a number of years. There is a swell chamber that sits at the second floor level of the house. Most of the pipes are in that. A few ranks are high up in the great room that extends up beyond the second floor. The pipes in the chamber didn't sound too bad, but the ones in the room were just too direct. I had experimented with miking the pipes and adding reverb. It actually sounded pretty good.

I've pretty much decided to remove the pipes completely as I think I like HW better with the reverb in the samples, although I have some reservations about the samples mixing electronically. So I'm slowly working on getting more audio channels.

scottherbert wrote:Hi Phantom, No, I haven't heard the Ohms, but I am seriously looking into the cone reflector. I believe it's called an acoustic lens or something. Usually the systems that use them are subwoofers, or (very) high end full range. Due to some frustration on my part to find a good full range speaker driver that does NOT beam in the higher pitches, I have been considering building speakers for myself utilizing up-firing full-range drivers firing into an acoustic lens with a subwoofer. It's still frustrating though, to find drivers that give good fidelity and aren't going to break the bank!

Nothing is ever perfect though, so when I can afford to get around to it, I will probably have to find what gives the best midrange I can afford, top it with the best tweeter, etc. Then we will just see how it sounds.

I am a huge fan of the omni-directional sound! I hate sweet spots. Music should sound good from wherever you sit or stand! Otherwise you would have to cram everyone into 1 chair with all of their heads crammed together!

~S

As I hope to retire soon, I should have more free time. I would love to experiment with the cone reflector above the driver. It's too bad such designs cost so much. As a fan of multi channel audio, this makes them prohibitively expensive.

I am a huge fan of the omni-directional sound! I hate sweet spots. Music should sound good from wherever you sit or stand! Otherwise you would have to cram everyone into 1 chair with all of their heads crammed together!

~S

Hallo Scott

Have you ever considered dipole speakers for the mid and highs, like the great Heil air motion transformers, see my setup viewtopic.php?f=21&t=15814or the Dayton AMT-Pro4 https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-au ... m--275-094These speakers have the best of both worlds. Good focussing but also very spacious sound.Because of the large usable freq. 800-20000 hz they are also phase lineair like like Kefs for al large part of the spectrum. Resulting in a non fatiguing sound.

Regards Jan

Yes Jan, I have looked at dipole a lot. I also like the ribbon and planar drivers for their sound qualities, but I often see conflicting data regarding sound fields, i.e. some are wide, yet some are very narrow! If I could reconcile a way to reflect one of those off of a cone in an omni-directional manner, then we're talking!